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Full, chapter-by-chapter review on .

This book manages to combine two flaws that I did not think were compatible: being dreadfully boring, and really offensive.

The premise is an obvious Mulan ripoff (and the ending doesn't help me get rid of that idea): Alexa has to pretend to be a boy and join the military. Instead of doing it to save her dad, it's to save herself. Namely, save herself from being sent to a breeding house, which is basically a rape house.

This is the first big issue with this book, and one I could not stop going back to. These rape houses are unnecessary. Yes, they make the bad guy more evil, but� they're not treated with enough seriousness to matter. The book makes it sound like killing the wife is as bad, or worse, of a crime as making all orphaned girls serve as whores. Worse, it's an evil that doesn't make sense: breeding soldiers is a very inefficient way to replenish an army. Have the women fight instead. That would make sense.

Ultimately, it's just a cheap excuse for the protagonist to pretend to be a man, and I cannot forgive using mass rape as a cheap excuse for anything.

But that's just the first of many issues I had with this book. There's blatant misogyny through and through, for a start. Alexa is the best swordfighter that Antion ever had, but when it comes down to it, it's prince Damian who protects her, not the other way around, even though it's her job to protect him. Every single one of her decision has to get a man's approval; in the end, she can't even feel beautiful until one of her love interests tells her she is, no matter the fact that another person—a woman, and a disinterested one at that—told her minutes before.

A lot of the worldbuilding is shoddy at best, trying to break classic fantasy tropes by being set in a jungle (which I appreciated) but then relying so heavily on those same tropes that nothing makes sense anymore (a regular castle in a jungle? Who built that?). And a lot of the characters are� not very smart, I will say.

And then, there's the love triangle. I'm biased against love triangles in general, but this one takes the cake because Alexa actually chooses one of the love interest in the second act� and then it never matters. The other love interest keeps pursuing her, and at the end, in an obvious setup for a potential sequel, the love triangle is reset to its status quo, will-they-or-won't-they. Since said love triangle took up most of the second act (which made that act absolutely boring), I feel cheated.

The only character I was remotely interested in was Damian, and even that was partly motivated in the potential for homoerotic subtext. Of course, that was ruined when it turned out he knew all along Alexa was a girl. By the way, yes: why doesn't Alexa think about Damian possibly being gay when he starts hitting on her "Alex" persona? It's like homosexuality doesn't even exist, as far as the book is concerned. I don't like that.

Aside from him, the rest of the main cast is mostly stereotypes, the villains are laughably evil (but not in a funny way), and the protagonist is a total Mary Sue who learns to fight the most evil and powerful sorcerer in two weeks� and then defeats him in five minutes. I am not impressed.

Oh, and one last note: everything in this book is utterly predictable.

A galley copy was provided through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.